We are not quite there yet, but Jose Mourinho’s tongue-in-cheek vision of football’s future looks closer every day.

After last season’s 1-0 win over a Manchester United side which dominated possession, the now-beleaguered Chelsea manager said:

“Maybe the future of football is a beautiful carpet without goals, and the team with more ball possession wins the game. Because everybody says ‘oh, my team plays fantastically well, we had great ball possession’. Good. ‘Oh, we build very well.’ Good.”

Watching my team struggle in the Premier League a few years ago, it was a familiar site to be a goal up with a minute left, looking on the way to a win that may turn the season around. And then it would happen, almost the same way every week. A long ball comes into the box, it is flicked on and loops over the defence, a striker pops up at the back post and your heart sinks, for you know exactly what is coming. A late equaliser and a whole 90 minutes ruined because the opposition won two touches of the ball in the air.

This season, again narrowly ahead approaching the final whistle, the opposition decides to take a slightly different approach. You are camped in your own box, the ball is played to their creative midfielder, he drives forward, a shot into the top corner looks inevitable, but instead he plays it out to the winger, now you know a cross is coming for their striker to head in from close range, but instead the winger stops the ball, turns back and plays it back to the midfielder, then the midfielder back to the full back. There are 30 seconds left and the opposition has no intention of doing anything other than passing it around seemingly in the hope that one of your defenders, camped in their own penalty area, might get distracted by a call from his wife. It’s the sort of attacking play that would be swatted aside even by Andorra defenders.

And yet, in the eyes of today’s ‘football expert’, the second approach is known as ‘playing the game the right way’ and the first as ‘going back to the dark ages’. Never mind how many games Manchester United used to win with a high ball into the box in ‘Fergie time’, that is now completely outdated and controlling possession is the key.

Yes there are the likes of Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce who cling desperately to the old ways, achieving everything that is asked of them in the most ‘ugly’ way possible. But it is never long before they are carted out to tend to their gardens by directors who think their teams should be playing like Barcelona. Little do they know the teams who are models of the football they aspire to have already reached the next step.

With Xavi and Iniesta ageing, Barcelona now play a game that suits the higher tempo of the likes of midfielder Ivan Rakitic and natural goalscorers Neymar and Suarez. And while Arsenal produced a fantastic display of possession football to defeat Watford last week, the next game they ceded the ball to Bayern Munich for the vast majority of the match, happy to wait for their chance to strike either from a set piece or on the counter attack. That 2-0 win was a sign that the north London club are finally moving on from the tactical inflexibility that manager Arsene Wenger has spent a decade being criticised for. Meanwhile at least half the league is approaching matches with that exact same kind of inflexibility and getting punished for it.

This weekend four teams had over 60% possession and between them they picked up one point. Norwich lost 1-0 at home to West Brom, Stoke lost 2-0 at home to Watford and Newcastle lost 3-0 at Sunderland, albeit falling unlucky victims of a controversial penalty and red card. The sole point went to Liverpool who picked up a 1-1 draw at home to Southampton. Coincidentally Liverpool were undone by a long ball into the box typical of yesteryear.

With the possible exception of Newcastle who were excellent before the red card, these teams were not in any way unlucky and barely threatened to score, despite their control of possession. Norwich had just three shots on target, Liverpool two and Stoke an abysmal one.

It is of course, not impossible to be successful with possession football, but it is football that only the best can play. To be a successful possession team in England you need defenders that can pass like midfielders, yet more often than not we see those who get caught in possession, fall over and watch the opposition walk the ball into the net. Then you need a striker who can get just one chance a match and still convert it, such as Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez. These requirements alone should be enough to put sides mid-table and below off this approach, yet still they persist and are praised for it.

A look at the ‘lesser teams’ which have been most successful this season should show the way forward. At West Ham Slaven Bilic appreciates control of possession where possible but is the ultimate pragmatist, never afraid to let his team take a long shot or put a cross in for fear of losing the ball. When they inflicted Manchester City’s only home loss of the season, they had just 28% possession.

In 5th place Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester have continued Nigel Pearson’s fast-paced approach looking to break quickly and trust the pace of Jamie Vardy on the shoulder of the last defender. They haven’t enjoyed more possession than the opposition in a single match this season.

Meanwhile Crystal Palace rely on wingers Zaha, Sako and Bolasie to run at defenders at pace. Whenever these players get the ball they head straight for the box rather than hanging around on the outside of it waiting for support.

While Jose Mourinho might not be around much longer, he can at least console himself in the performances of these three teams ensuring that Premier League groundsmen won’t be ordering the ornate Persian rugs just yet.